[DPRating]The Crypto Rating Report of Over 70 Projects May Edition

DPRating

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DPRating

9 min readMay 17, 2018

By DPRating Team

What is this list?

After that we launched our reviews and audit reports, many readers came to ask our views on the major cryptos on the market, so we decide to package it into a Ranking list.

Our Cryptocurrency Rating list includes the ratings of different cryptocurrencies with our evaluation models: Embryo, Growth and Mature. Each model is tailored for Cryptos in different development progress. The 2 additional dimensions Risk and Popularity provide more aspects of the projects.

This is also an update of our previous article:

[DarpalRating]Our Ratings, Thoughts and Ranking on some major cryptos -April Update

April 12nd, 2018 Evaluations from DalpalRating Team

medium.com

Here is the list:

New projects in the list:

GRS（Groestlcoin）

The technology focused project Groestlcoin was launched in March 2014. Its website lists several technological achievements — Segwit, a usable lightning network, extremely low transaction fees, new version releases every three months, a wallet that supports multiple operation systems, and so on. Most of the code commits in the GRS Github library are focused on the wallet, browser, mining software, etc. The core library is forked from Bitcoin, and there are only four contributors. The ten largest holders of GRS hold roughly 45% of the total supply. The token is very centralized, a risk that has to be considered. According to our evaluations, GRS gets a B — rating.

VTC（Vertcoin）

Vertcoin is a crypto dedicated to decentralized mining (against ASIC). It is forked from Bitcoin. It’s unique in a few ways: it has not launched an ICO, has no pre-mining or simple mining software, and has a 2.5 minute block time. It applies Lyra2REv2 to defend against ASIC. The difficulty of mining is adjusted every time a block is created. What is worth mentioning is that the VTC dev team consists only of the community members. Vert has successfully developed Segwit, and the atomic swap based on the Lightning network is in the development process. On Vert’s website there is evidence that some merchants already accept payments in VTC, which undoubtedly demonstrates the success of the VTC community. According to our evaluations, VTC deserves a B- rating.

BCN（Bytecoin）

Bytecoin is the first crypto currency that applies CryptoNote technology. The Cryptonote thesis has displayed several advantages to Bitcoin, including untraceable payments, equal POW (against ASIC), and adjustable parameters. However, an article from BTCMANAGER pointed out some fatal flaws with Bytecoin: a nontransparent development process, severe pre-mining, some bugs and some unoriginal content on their white paper. Some hold that this is a PR attack toward BCN from XMR, but problems do exist for Cryptonote and the BTCMANAGER article provides ample evidence of this. BCN’s development progress and community management is also of no comparison to XMR. In conclusion, BCN receives low scores in development progress, fund supervision, and blockchain performance. Its overall score is C+ and the risk is high.

CLOAK（CloakCoin）

CLOAK is a crypto for payment that focuses on privacy and performance. The project has been improved since the reorganization of the team in 2014. The CLOAD adopts PoS as the consensus and guarantees its block times. Users can get 6% interest through staking. Its enigma system (similar to coin mixing + stealth address) and CloakShield function (similar to Tor) also make sure that the token transactions are private.

Cognoses has conducted a third-party audit report for CLOAK, which is very rare in the industry and demonstrates, to an extent, the information security sector’s approval of blockchain technology. Meanwhile, the project faces other problems — its anonymity is not a vast improvement over DASH and XMR, and also not as innovative as zk-SNARK. Its GitHub library is not very active; there are only a few contributors. The top 100 CLOAK addresses hold 76% of the total token supply, which is risky (as it adopts PoS mechanism). In summary, CLOAK receives low scores in development progress and blockchain performance. We give it an overall score of B- with a medium risk level.

PPT（Populous）

Populous has a vision of rebuilding the current financial bill system. It hopes to build a P2P discount financial bill trading platform. The project was funded back in July 2017. According to the whitepaper, Populous uses the XBRL data set for risk assessment and the PPT token would be securitized as a Token for buying finance bills. Populous recently launched the Beta platform, pushing up its market price. The project is not open sourced, and it has little to do with blockchain. The trading system can just as easily base itself in fiat. Also, the political risk of the financial bill market is not to be neglected. In total, PPT has limited scores in the project dimension and receives an overall rating of C+.

ARK（Ark）

Ark’s vision is to create an ecology that links blockchains. At the same time, Ark wants to build a safe platform. According to its whitepaper, Ark’s idea came from List and BTS. It adopts the DPoS consensus mechanism (it has 51 delegates). Ark features multi-signature accounts, routing table, and constant block rewards (which means it’s inflationary), possessing an 8 second block time with every block including 25 transactions. What is worth mentioning is that through SmartBridge function Ark proposes a scaling solution: move some work to sidechains and bridge other mainchains with similar code bases. Additionally, Ark’s wallet is in good development progress — there are already mobile and desktop versions. In summary, Ark has good performance in the team, development progress, and blockchain performance categories. Its overall rating is B+.

MCO（Monaco）

Those who buy and lock-up the MCO token can acquire the Monaco Visa card — a pre-charged credit card. In addition, users can buy ETH and BTC on the MCO App, and deposit cryptos for credits. MCO does not have a Github library — there is no open source plan. The project itself is not highly correlated to blockchain. What determines the MCO token price is its number of users. It launched its own token on Ethereum. Recently the listing on Bithumb pushed up its price. MCO has no prominent technology, but does promote blockchain in a way that is accessible for the public. Its overall rating is C+.

HT（Huobi Token）

HT is the platform token of Huobi. Its value includes trading fee discounts, regular buy back, trading, and voting credit. The platform token’s value is decided by the exchange platform’s volume, its future opportunities, and the policy of the token. Considering the leading role of Huobi as an exchange, the overall rating for HT is B+.

GBYTE（ByteBall）

ByteBall is a very unique crypto for a few reasons — the underlying technology is DAG, it did not have public sale, and the tokens are all distributed to its community members by preset rules. Byteball has a powerful wallet and platform. It has realized conditional smart contract payments, P2P finance, and identity verification. Its features include atomic swaps, multi-signature, immutable storage (through Byteball database), blockchain oracle, and the Blackbyte token which realizes anonymous P2P payment through Tor. It has an active Github library, with most commits from its founder tonyofbyteball. New versions are released regularly. In total, Byteball has good performance in the technology and team categories and receives an overall rating of B+.

BNT（Bancor）

Bancor Protocol’s vision is to build a decentralized conversion network. Through SmartTokens (which is Bancor’s BNT) and other connected smartcontracts, Bancor builds a liquidity mechanism. The conversion price is based on the calculation of the open source Bancor Formula. The exact conversion principle is elaborated on in the whitepaper. Bancor has made good development progress, with a completed wallet, exchange, and even fiat trading. Its trading volume keeps reaching all time highs, making it the largest decentralized exchange platform. In total, Bancor’s score is high in the categories of development progress and strategic positioning, but the cap for their ICO was too high, nearly 400,000 ETH at June 2017. While the ICO was executed through smart contracts to ensure the lock-up will be done properly, its cap still greatly surpasses other similar projects such as KNC and 0x. Bancor’s overall score is B-.

Upgrades

Scry.io (DDD)

The Scry project has made a lot of progress recently. The development process is transparent and its token is already circulating in the secondary market. According to our evaluation model we have kept the scores in the project and team categories unchanged. In terms of development, its score is high due to good progress and transparency, though the Github library is not very active. In terms of performance in the market, Scry is only listed on a few exchanges (only 5 exchanges), of which none are top level exchanges. The price is stable but the liquidity is not very good. Its rating has been adjusted to B-.

Elastos (ELA)

ELA’s progress matches its roadmap. The Elastos fund was established in March 2018 to support the ELA ecology. In April Elastos published the API document for smart contracts and sidechains. However, the code quality is low and the Github library is not very active. As for its market performance, Elastos has very good liquidity, with a market cap ranked 85. It is listed on top exchanges such as Huobi.pro. Considering that its price is very volatile, its stability score has been lowered. Elastos’ rating has been adjusted to B+.

Aeternity (AE)

AE has published a series of technical updates recently — migrating AEPP to the AE testnet and improving the desktop/mobile system. The 0.12.0 test version of the mainnet is launched and the mainnet is expected to be launched before the 30th of June. In terms of the team, the joining of Vincent Zhou is a highlight for AE. As for their market performance, AE has improved in both liquidity and stability. To summarize, AE’s rating has been adjusted to B+.

TRX（Tron）

Tron has been very active lately. The testnet will be launched on the 31st of March, with the mainnet release planned for the 31st of May. The code quality and the Github activity are eye-catching. It ranked 8th in the March edition of DarpalRating, which is a positive factor. The liquidity is good; TRX has been listed on 52 exchanges, including some top-level exchanges. In addition, the price has been stable. The shortcomings consist in the team — the information from the team is not transparent, which affects the credibility of its technology. In summary, the project has been adjusted to a C+ rating.

Nuls (Nuls)

The Nuls project is steadily progressing and achieving the milestones of its whitepaper. On the 27th of April the mainnet was launched for testing, with a new core version set to be launched on the 1st of May. Based on the last 3 months of data on Cryptomiso, Nuls is the most active project. On DPRating’s March code audit Nuls ranked 76, a rather normal performance. In terms of the team, former blockchain expert of Huawei Huang Lianjin has joined the team as an advisor. Based on market performance, the liquidity hasn’t changed much and the market cap is rather stable. Its overall rating has been adjusted to B-.

Status (SNT)

The SNT project is moving forward smoothly. For now, SNT is in a transition from the final alpha version to the Beta version. The team is pushing for the Beta version to be launched in the middle of May. On the 27th of April, the SNT alpha version was released. They also upgraded the Whisper protocol, effectively decreased the size of the data, and added dApp entry for the Status ecology. In the DPRating code audit ranking, it rated 4.3, a very high ranking in the chart. The performance has been high in both code committing and quality. In terms of its market performance, the price is volatile. Overall, the rating has been adjusted to B-.

Downgrades

NANO（Raiblock）

According to the official announcement from NANO’s reddit on the 18th of April, the project has encountered some technical issues. The team contacted exchanges to suspend trading until the bug is fixed; the detailed documentation related to this fixing will also be published. The incident indicates that the super node has serious challenges in its development which will directly affect the progress and accomplishment of their milestones. Overall, Nano has been adjusted to a B- rating.

Risk Warning

BEC（BeautyChain）

A critical bug is found in the BEC smart contract, leading to great amount of addition offering of the token. The trading is already suspended on OKEX. It’s also worth mentioning that we have already brought up the risk of highly centralized holding of BEC in our previous article.

CTR（Centra）

CTR has been unlisted from most of the exchanges, the trade volume is very low.